The case wasn’t a fair fight: It was more like David and Goliath without the benefit of divine intervention.

Most citizens do not realize that this mismatch of legal resources is typical for advocacy cases. So, advocacy organizations on the side of natural, man-woman marriage came into the case as friends of the court, trying to help defend the law of the state of Iowa. Most notably, a group of scholars presented briefs and affidavits on various aspects of the social significance of marriage. But the trial court refused to admit five out of the eight expert witnesses presented to them.

These experts covered a wide range of issues, including the ethics of artificial reproductive technologies, the rights of children to be raised by their parents, the procreative purpose of marriage, the history and meaning of marriage, and the significance of gender differences in parenting. The trial court refused to hear the testimony of Allan Carlson, author of five books on the history of marriage, Margaret Somerville, founding director of the McGill University Centre for Medicine, Ethics and Law, and Stephen Rhodes, political science professor at the University of Virginia. This is the very sort of evidence that courts in other states, such as New York, have found persuasive.

After refusing to hear their testimony, the court had the nerve to declare a whole list of facts were “undisputed.” Instead of listening to both sides and deciding impartially, the court lifted the “facts” directly from the brief of the same-sex “marriage” advocates.